julia_t

I watched that film a couple of years ago. It is a very thought-provoking film.

Another very powerful film is the Bosnian 'Pretty Village Pretty Flame' which follows the paths of two childhood friends who end up on different sides fighting each other. This film is bloody and brutal.

There's the Oscar-winning 'No Man's Land', about two enemy soldiers who are trapped together in a trench in no man's land. The UN are trying to rescue them but the only people who speak the same language are the men in the trench.

There was also a British TV drama series called Warriors, about the army’s role in Bosnia as UN peacekeepers based near Vitez, who were constrained by strict rules of engagement which made them powerless to stop ethnic cleansing and left many traumatised. Starring Ioan Gruffith and Matthew McFaddyen, it's worth watching if you can get hold of it.

Thank you for continuing your report, I am sure I am not alone in avidly awaiting the next installment!

ellen75005

Julia, you're definitely not alone in avidly awaiting the next installment! Vt, can't wait to read your impressions of Dubrovnik!

Ellen

Vttraveler

This trip report seems to be taking forever. Sorry!
Day 4 Dubrovnik

We had ordered breakfast at 8 a.m. and it was delivered to the rooms on trays so that we could sit out on the balcony. The day was absolutely beautiful, clear and warm. It was a wonderful treat to have this final shot of summer in early
October--it helped to make up for our missing foliage season at home in Vermont.

As we were enjoying our substantial breakfast (soft boiled eggs, bread, fruit, yogurt, meats, cheese) we noticed a beautiful windjammer ship sailing north along the coast.

Rather than dealing with driving to and parking in the city, we took a water taxi from Plat to Dubrovnik. This is more expensive than the bus but well worth the extra money for the views of the beautiful coast. There are quite a few ruins of old Tito-era hotels as well as the currently used hotels and holiday apartments. The water approach to the walled city of Dubrovnik is also very impressive.

We entered the city gates from the harbor area and walked the length of Stradun, the main street, stopping at an ATM (which still did not work for us). We were surprised at how crowded the walled city was. Despite the relatively late date, there were some big cruise ships in the harbor. Dubrovnik is a favorite port of call on Mediterranean cruises. Our friend had not been terribly enthusiastic about visiting the city again since she finds it so touristy and less interesting than other parts of the coast, but she understood why we wanted to see it, and we promised to go to some places she had not seen before.

We climbed up to the massive city walls with many other people and began a circuit, going about 3/4 of the way around (the total distance is 3 km). Dubrovnik is a stunningly beautiful city and has been restored from the damage caused during the seven month siege in 1991-2 when the Serb navy shelled the coastal areas. The views out to sea are spectacular, and we also enjoyed looking down into the residential areas. Most people with homes near the wall seem to have set up
arbors to shield themselves from prying eyes. We saw the beautiful rigged windjammer sailing past again, too.

We exited the walls at the Maritime Museum. I had hoped this would be more informative than it was but it did give some insight into the city history. Dubrovnik was an independent republic from 1358 to 1808, with an economy based on shipping and trading goods between Europe and the Middle East.

We stopped for a good late lunch at the Oliva Pizzeria with outside tables in a small alley near the church of St.Blaise. Blaise is the patron saint of the city and our friend assured us that he also helps to protect the throat. This seemed odd to us but we subsequently confirmed her story by consulting with a friend who is a former Catholic priest and used to participate in the blessing of the throats on Blaise's feast day in February.

After lunch we headed to our second museum, the rector's palace.
This was the center of government for the Dubrovnik Republic. The building was built in the 15th century with later additions. In addition to exhibits about the history of the city and building there was a photography exhibit about the 1991-2 siege.

Our next destination was the island of Lokrum near the city harbor. The island had a large Benedictine abbey and monastery in the 11th century. According to legend, Richard the Lion-heart was shipwrecked in 1192 as he was returning home from the crusades and was cast ashore on Lokrum. In 1859, Maximilian Ferdinand of the Hapsburg dynasty (later Emperor of Mexico for a brief period--before he was executed!) built a mansion with elaborate gardens on Lokrum. These gardens are no longer there but in 1959 a Botanical Garden with many exotic plants was planted on the island. There are also several beaches and a star-shaped fort built by the French in 1806 with a beautiful view of the surrounding area. We took the last boat of the day back to Dubrovnik harbor along with many people who had spent the day there at the beach.

We had missed the last water taxi back to Plat and were planning to take the bus when we realized that there was a water taxi to Cavtat where we were planning to eat dinner. As we left the harbor we realized that the windjammer we had been watching all day was moored there, so we got a close look. The ride back along the coast at sunset was beautiful.

Cavtat has a long history starting with its founding by the ancient Greeks as Epidauros and subsequent Roman incarnation as Epidaurum. Today the city is a fishing port and resort. Many tourists with yachts stay there. A charming palm-lined seaside promenade with open-air cafés and restaurants curves around the harbor. We ate some good seafood at the restaurant Cavtat. My husband tried to hurry the waiter at the end, asking for our check so that we could catch a bus to Plat. the waiter was clearly horrified that we would go off without having our complimentary liqueurs, so we settled back to enjoy those and took the next bus.

ellen75005

Dubrovnik is one of our favorite places in the world. We've been there in March and April. Both times the weather was good and the Stari Grad wasn't packed with tourists. I can imagine how bad it is when several ships and tour buses disgorge at the same time. Walking the wall is truly amazing. We've never made it to Cavtat, but it's on our list for the next visit.

I was there on business and both times we stayed at the Lero, one of those Yugoslav-style hotels you mentioned (very nice, however). It's about a 15-minute walk "up" from Stari Grad, along the coast. It was the most beautiful commute to and from work that I can imagine!

Thanks for your report, Vt; you have a nice writing style and I've enjoyed all your reports.

yk

Vttraveler, I finally had a chance to read this and I read from the beginning to end of Day 4. I am enjoying every word; keep it coming!

Vttraveler

I am glad people are finding the report interesting. I am working on Day 5 (Peljesac Peninsula and overnight in Neum) off line since it is hard to get a long block of time to write these days.

I know it was hard for us to get information about BiH before we left and I really appreciated people's trip reports.

We had an amusing small world experience last week. My husband was speaking at a nearby state college class. One of the students asked him what he had done recently that was especially interesting. Rather than talk about his job he answered that our trip to Sarajevo, including watching a part of one of the war crime trials (to be described on Day 7) had been fascinating. Another student raised her hand and asked "Do you know [Vttraveler]?" She is an intern in our office, had heard me talking about our trip and correctly figured very few people in Central Vt would have gone to BiH this fall.

Vttraveler

Day 5

We had another good breakfast on the hotel balcony and set out from Plat with our local fruit and a few bottles of the hotel owners' homemade rakija. One of our main tasks on the road trip to Herzegovina and Croatia was to replenish our friend's supply of rakija for the coming year. Rakija is an alcoholic beverage that is produced by distillation of fermented fruit and it is a popular beverage throughout the Balkans. It seems to be almost as important as coffee, and our friend said that she needed to be able to offer visitors several different varieties. (Many of the Muslims in BiH will drink alcohol and certainly the other ethnic groups do.)

Rakija's alcohol content is normally 40%, but home-produced rakia can be stronger. The homemade drinks are usually considered better quality than the commercial brands. Common flavors are slivovica, produced from plums, kruska, produced from pear, kajsijevaca, produced from apricots and lozovaca, produced from grapes. The first two especially slivovica are common in Bosnia while lozovaca is found more in Herzegovina and Dalmatia with their milder climate. Other fruits that are used less often are peaches, apples, pears, cherry, figs, and quinces. Orahova is made with walnuts.

There were many options for sightseeing--Croatia's coast is beautiful and we were also interested in the islands. We finally decided to take a relatively short drive north to explore the Peljesac Penninsula. On the way we stopped for several views of Dubrovnik looking down from the coastal road.

The first stop on the peninsula was the town of Ston. There are two separate settlements, the main town of Ston and the smaller town of Mali Ston, founded in 1333 by the Republic of Dubrovnik. The two towns were individually fortified and a system of defensive walls was then built to connect them, effectively controlling land access onto the peninsula.
Dubrovnik was interested in Ston as a source of salt, and there are still salt works there.

Of the original 5½ km of walls, 3 km are still standing. I was interested in seeing the walls but had not realized how spectacular they are. From the village of Ston they rise up a steep hill and look like a mini-version of the Great Wall of China. There are spectacular views from the wall. After climbing the wall we wandered briefly through the town and bought another bottle of rakija from a woman at a small local market before heading to Mali Ston for lunch.

Mali Ston is known for its excellent mussels and oysters. We thoroughly enjoyed our lunch at the Bota restaurant which is in a 14th century salt warehouse. As we were eating there was a heavy downpour, but it stopped by the time we were ready to hit the road again. We wandered for a while in Mali Ston to see the other end of the long wall.

We drove all the way along the peninsula to Orebic, a small resort town on the coast, facing across a narrow sea channel to the island of Korcula. On the way we saw lots of people harvesting grapes and eventually we stopped for a tasting at the Matusko Winery in the Dingac wine region. We arrived just as a busload of tourists had left so there were different wines and cheese plates set out in the cellar--very convenient for us. We bought some of the wine and also some local olive oil.

We investigated ferries from the peninsula to the coast to save a little driving time, but the last one of the day had left, so we retraced our route to the main coastal road from Orebic. We had called to try to reserve rooms at hotels in Gradac and Neum that our friend had visited before, but both were full. Since it was almost dark, we decided to stop in Neum at another bigger hotel, but as we reached the border of BiH, the Hotel Posejdon in Neum called back to say we could stay there after all.

The coastal strip of BiH is a very short 24.5 km and Neum is the only town. Most tourists simply pass through along the coastal highway, grumbling about the border crossings. Croatia is currently building the Pelješac Bridge which will connect mainland Croatia in the north with the Pelješac peninsula, thus re-routing the Adriatic Highway away from coastal Bosnia and Herzegovina

It is my impression that most of the tourists who stay in Neum are from BiH.

We reached the Hotel Posejdon shortly after dark. It turned out that the hotel was hosting a conference and there was only one room available in the main hotel. My husband and I were lodged in a small rather odd holiday apartment across the street. This wasn't as nice as the hotel rooms but fine for our purposes. We settled in quickly and headed for dinner.

We spent some time trying to decide whether to try black (cuttlefish), red or green risotto, and the cook offered to make some of each for us to share family style. It was all very good and very reasonably priced.

ellen75005

Vt, I loved reading about Ston. We've driven through it several times and have never stopped; we certainly will next time.

In Kosovo rakija is called simply raki. I'm actually not sure what it's made of, but I can only drink it in tiny sips since it's so strong. I don't think I've ever had different flavors, but I remember my daughter talking about different flavored rakija in Sarajevo.

I think the views of and from the Dalmatian coast are some of the most spectacular I've ever seen. Thanks for another chapter!

Vttraveler

ellen-- I agree that a little rakija/raki goes a long way. I was also careful to drink slowly. I was surprised that several restaurants offered free drinks at the end of the meal. The waiter in Cavtat even brought different varieties to my husband (slivovica) and my friend and me (something he told us was "rose"--we think it was maybe made from rose hips?)

I also agree that the scenery along the Dalmatian coast is absolutely amazing. Hard to describe if you haven't seen it. we would definitely like to go back.

My husband is just working on a holiday letter. He likes to do cards with pictures from our trips and this year he has a shot of two men sitting on the steps of the mosque in Sarajevo. Not very Christmas-y but a good ecumenical message. Interestingly enough, these two men look a lot like my husband. He has a beard and wears a beret (purchased years ago in Spain) and many of the Muslim men in Sarajevo looked very much like him. Several people we met mentioned that he blended right in, looked like their father, etc. and a few times men came up to him and started talking, apparently mistaking him for someone else.

danon

rakija is plum brandy.... raki in Kosovo - is in Albanian.
another strong drink is loza ( same as grappa}

Vttraveler

My friend in Sarajevo just sent me this link to information about a project to try to restore some of the National Library collection destroyed in 1992

http://www.books4vijecnica.com/

Dubrovniktravelady

Rakija is the base of many of our local drinks, I do believe it will remove varnish from a boat deck. Rakija is usually made from fermented white grapes.
Slivovitz is a rakija base with the addition of fermented plums. Slivo is the Croatian word for plums.
Travaroca is rakija made by adding some type of fermented greens.
There are still a few families who do make rosa, by adding specific rose petals to a rakija base, it's very tasty but ever so strong.
Often one will get the chance to taste some original homemade, it is much better than the bottles sold in the markets. Visit any of the farmers markets in town and you can buy the real stuff...only if you have a boat!

southeastern

My husband will be glad to hear they drink Raki in Croatia. It burned a hole all of the way down the first time I drank it. I agree it would work better than paint remover. We got it free after dinner in Greece and even though I love "free" after the first sip, I passed on it.

Dubrovniktravelady

If you want to taste a very nice after dinner drink, ask for "Orahovica." I made my own batch this summer, it is delicious and is not as strong as the other drinks. Made from a base of rakija, walnuts and sugar. The walnuts are added while they are still in the green shell, with several holes made with a fork, lots of sugar and then it sits in the sun for a minimum of 45 days. As the sun heats the walnuts, the rakija begins to become the color of chocolate. Has the appearance of Amaretto, but tastes of walnuts.
Next time you're in Dubrovnik stop by my home for a glass.

Vttraveler

I didn't realize the process for making orahovica was so complicated. I think it was my favorite of the after-dinner drinks we tried--it tasted smoother than many of the others. I wish I could go back to Dubrovnik to sample some of yours.

I will try to finish another day or two of the trip report this weekend and report on our other adventures in pursuit of good rakija.

danon

I never had orahovica, but many years ago sljivovica or rakija of any kind ( except home made) was something only alcoholics , unsophisticated or peasants would drink.
Perhaps, the times have changed.

Dubrovniktravelady

Times certainly have changed, especially in Dubrovnik.

Vttraveler

Day 6--back from Croatia to Sarajevo

We had an o.k. breakfast buffet with the conference attendees at the Hotel Posejdon. During the breakfast, our friend realized that she knew/had met several people at the conference--an example of "small world" in BiH circles. We arranged to meet one of them later in the week so that we could take his ballot back to the U.S. and mail it for him.

When we settled the bill, it was higher than we had expected. Our friend had visited the hotel with a co-worker and had been urged to return and quoted a much lower price. When we saw the co-worker contact back in Sarajevo, he laughed and said that the next time she should ask him to make reservations. She had invoked his name several times but apparently this was not enough.

We continued north along the coast to Makarsala, a pleasant resort town, where we would pick up the road back to BiH. We parked near the harbor and strolled around for awhile, enjoying this last experience of summer-y weather. We got a
quick lunch of burek (light filo pastry wrapped around a meat filling) at a bakery after promising our friend we would not tell anyone in Sarajevo that we had eaten our first burek in Croatia rather than BiH.

We walked to the far side of the harbor for coffee and a better view of the town's geography. The hills rise very steeply from the coastal strip here, and it is a dramatic sight. As we looked at the imposing hills, we wondered how the road we were planning to take would get around/over them. We had decided to take a route that our friend had not tried before, via Vrgorac and Ljubuski. One of the attractions, apart from trying something new, was a recommendation for a restaurant where our friend could buy excellent rakija. I had consulted our two maps and determined this route did not show many squiggly lines, and we naively decided that the road must go through a pass somewhere.

Soon after starting out from Makarsala, the road began to climb very steeply and, looking ahead, we saw that it was was basically carved into the side of the hills with many hairpin turns. The drive was really terrifying for quite a stretch. We kept thinking the bad curves would end soon but then we would see more ahead. The views down (way down!) to the coast and the coastal road were spectacular although no one could really enjoy them except when we stopped at one of the pull-off areas. Then my husband remarked that he wondered how much was holding up these pull-outs at the edge of cliffs, and we didn't enjoy the stops so much.

Eventually we got through this part of the drive and into an area with more normal, though not exactly easy, mountain driving. We were able to see the sections of the highway which is being built from Zagreb to the coast--quite an engineering feat.

We passed back into BiH and soon reached Ljubuski and the Restaurant Most where we stopped to buy the recommended rakija. This was a beautiful spot along the river with bicycles and kayaks for rent. The restaurant looked charming, and there is an inn/motel connected to it.

The road from Ljubuski went past the pilgrimage site of Medjugorje. I had only vaguely heard of this site, but it is well known in BiH and the Catholic world and has been visited by millions of pilgrims. On June 24, 1981, six teenagers reported that they had been visited by the Virgin Mary, and she supposedly appears to them still. The area around the town/church has been built up with many facilities to accommodate these visitors.

Beyond Medjugorje we drove past an area with many vineyards, then entered Mostar and rejoined the main road to Sarajevo. We wanted to complete most of the trip in daylight so did not stop along the way. We did pick up some lamb dinners to go in Jablanica, and took these back to eat at our friend's apartment along with some of the Croatian wine.

Vttraveler

Day 7 Sarajevo

I am not making good progress with this report due to the holidays, work and other distractions. I did want to describe Day 7 so that people who visit Sarajevo may consider attending a trial as we did.

The court hearing we saw was part of a war crimes trial at the
War Crimes Chamber
Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Kraljice Jelene 88
71000 Sarajevo , Bosnia and Herzegovina

We went with our friend who knew many of the judges, interpreters and attorneys involved, but it is possible for any visitor to see this war crimes tribunal in action. The proceedings currently have simultaneous translation in English (and perhaps other languages), although this may change when the international judges leave next year and the court is staffed with local judges only. This would be unfortunate because the trials are important and widely studied and should be accessible to the international community.

There is an interesting digest about the work of the court at
http://www.bim.ba/en/251/

After our morning in court, we had an excellent lunch at a nearby Italian restaurant, San Marino. This was what turned out to be the last warm day of the trip and we were able to eat outside in the courtyard.

My husband and I decided to go to the old town for more sightseeing while our friend went to work. We walked down to the main road and visited a big fruit and vegetable market before getting on the tram into town. In addition to the fruit and vegetable vendors, there were many stalls selling honey.

The tram system is quite easy to use although as I noted in an earlier entry, cabs are also inexpensive especially if there are more than two people riding. The trams can get very full and we were warned to watch for pick pockets.

In the old town, we got off to visit the small museum of 1914 with exhibits about the Austro-Hungarian era in Sarajevo history and especially about the assassination of Arch-Duke Ferdinand. We also visited the Old Orthodox church, built in the mid 16th century. It has an impressive iconostasis, a wall of icons.

That evening we ate at a wine bar, Noovi, right near the apartment then headed down through the park to see a movie our friend had recommended, The film, Jasmina, is the story of a woman who takes her young granddaughter to the Croatian coast during the siege of Sarajevo, then is forced to rely on an alcoholic neighbor to care for the child when she is hospitalized. A good movie--look for it on Netflix.

tower

vt: keep it going..you are painting a clear and detailed picture of a region not many on this fourm have experienced. Brings back a ton of memories to this old (very old) Yugoslavia traveler. I thank you for this outstanding
effort! (I recently filled two chapters on the same regions, c.1890's, albeit fiction)

stu